Hewlett Packard, which backs an OpenStack cloud strategy, is poised to acquire a cloud platform provider that offers a competing open source cloud system.
HP (NYSE: HPQ) said it has agreed to buy Eucalyptus Systems Inc., of Goleta, Calif. The company offers a free and open source software for building Amazon Web Services (AWS)-compatible private and hybrid cloud computing environments. Its software enables pooling compute, storage and network resources that can dynamically scale to suit application workload changes.
Details of the deal, including how much the purchase is costing HP, have not been disclosed. However, HP announced that Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos, will manage HP’s cloud business and will be reporting directly to Meg Whitman, HP’s CEO.
HP has a set of software products under the Helion portfolio for running internal and external cloud services on the OpenStack platform. It will be Mickos’ responsibility to grow and manage Helion as vice president and general manager of HP Cloud, according to a report from online technology publication Computerworld.com.
Wired.com quotes Bill Hilf, senior vice president of product, services and strategy for HP’s cloud business as saying the acquisition and the enlistment of Mickos provides a leader for HP’s cloud operation and fills a gap in the company’s technology.
With Eucalyptus, HP customers will be able to dovetail private cloud services in their data centres with AWS cloud services.
HP is intent in projecting the idea that it can offer the broadest choice of cloud deployment technologies for the enterprise, Gigaom reports. Eucalyptus gives it additional ammo against the likes of Red Hat and IBM which offer OpenStack solutions and VMware and Microsoft which offer proprietary solutions.
Mickos has been a critic of OpenStack. Recently, however, he appears to have softened his views and has even spoken in an OpenStack event.
In a blog in August, Mickos still aired concerns about the governance of OpenStack but he also said he wanted Eucalyptus to become a contributor to Eucalyptus. He said in the past two years his company “rebuilt itself to be the AWS-compatible private cloud platform that just works.”
“Now I would like to become a stronger contributor – a contributor to the success of OpenStack,” Mickos wrote. “…I want OpenStack to succeed. When that happens, Eucalyptus can also succeed.”